An Infatuation With Brilliance
by Sunflowers of Blue
Summary: Her passion for knowledge and her blind innocence made her awfully susceptible to the games of brilliant men. His ruined family forced him out of a life only she can bring to him.
1. A Life Worth Saving

An Infatuation With Brilliance

Chapter 1: A Life Worth Saving

A QUICK NOTE: I apologize for the short hiatus. After reading the 7th book I just couldn't continue my story. Somehow it just didn't seem right. Still, I knew what I wanted to say; I just needed to repackage it. So, this is still An Infatuation With Brilliance, it's just… different. I'm posting this as a chapter of the old story for a little while. As soon as I have the next chapter of this story up, I'll delete the old one and repost this beginning chapter. Please enjoy!

HP HISTORY: All Harry Potter book history applies to my story up until Harry Potter book 7 page 726. After page 726 you can assume most of it is still accurate (if you don't hear about it), otherwise I'll be changing it around. Above all, the end of the book and the epilogue DO NOT apply. The beginning of this chapter is integrated with page 726 and a little afterwards to remind you of exactly what happened.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I don't own anything connected to the Harry Potter series. No monetary profit is being collected.

"_Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?" _ It was Narcissa Malfoy. Harry understood why she was asking.

"_Yes," _he breathed back. Narcissa only cared for her son. She cared not for the sick and twisted stark white form of a man who stood behind Harry. The fear in her voice told him all he needed to know. At some point, and Harry guessed a long time ago, Narcissa had fallen out of love with Voldemort and his ideals. He knew she had had no way out, nowhere to go, especially with her husband as involved as he was.

At this understanding, he resolved to try to protect her, and possibly even Draco. She had been a coward before but now she risked her life to save Draco's and had saved Harry's along the way. She shielded her son from Voldemort. Hadn't his beloved mother, Lily, done the same? He would protect her.

_"Avada Kedavra!"_

_"Expelliarmus!"_

Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand staring down at his enemy's shell.

The quietest seconds Harry had ever lived followed. No one spoke, no one moved even a toe. The silence nearly hurt his ears. Then without warning chaos ensued again. The golden sun was blinding as the front doors were flung wide. Horrified Death Eaters scattered, fleeing to the grounds. Someone, a student, and probably a D.A. member, yelled "GET THEM!"

What was left of the D.A., the Order of the Pheonix and Hogwarts students and staff plunged into the swarm of Death Eaters who were no longer even using their wands. They were running as fast as they could towards the edge of the grounds, where, as everyone was painfully aware, the anti-apparition shield lifted. Stunning spells and body binding curses seem to fly everywhere.

Hermione broke away from Ron and Luna and charged after a tall Death Eater who was running flat out toward a grove of trees. She took aim with her wand, missed, and ran on. "Oh. No. You. Don't," she panted as she sprinted towards him. As he reached the trees he whipped around, his wand drawn. Startled, Hermione stumbled against a large rock by a clump of grass. "Stupif-" Dew clung to the clumps of green and she slid a foot before she even felt her wand fly out of her hand.

She clutched the stitch in her side.

"I've had enough from you, Mudblood." It was Lucius Malfoy, and he had blocked her curse.

They stood there, neither moving and inch, Lucius' wand trained on the wandless Hermione. "My wife may have weakened in the face of turning tides, but I will never succumb to it."

"Then you will die for it," answered Hermione truthfully.

"I will not tolerate your insolence, Mudblood. When will you learn, you stupid girl?" He raised his wand hand as if intending to slap her, and she turned her cheek out of the way.

"Weak," he sneered. His blond hair hung, dirty, around his face which was twisting in sick realization of his predicament. He had nowhere to run. It was over. His master was gone, and every wizard on the face of the earth knew of his involvement with the Dark Lord. His wife, considered by He Who Must Not Be Named too weak for any real work had never had the pleasure of killing for their Lord. As such, she might be spared by the winning side. Even his son might be spared, being so young. But then, perhaps not, he was of age after all. But he, Lucius Malfoy, didn't stand a chance.

"You're right on one count, Mudblood. They'll hunt me down for what I've done. I'll never be free of them. They won't stop searching until they've found me. _You_ won't stop. They'll kill me, unless I do first. My final act, before I rejoin the Dark Lord shall be…" He leaned in close to Hermione.

She could see her wand lying no more than three metres away but didn't dare move an inch. The sun was blinding her as she squinted into Malfoy's deranged smile. "… shall be, killing you." Suddenly, the sun was extinguished. Rain splattered the ground from a deathly blackened sky. Hermione could have sworn both their necks cracked in an effort to look up into the sky, shocked at the sudden change in the weather. A crack of lightning later and Lucius breathed, "Draaco."

Hermione didn't understand at all. _What did Draco have to do with this? _All she could think was that Lucius was quite mad. But this was her chance. He was distracted and she lunged for her wand. Just as she nearly reached the spot where it had fallen she was slammed into a rock. Her back throbbed and she lay forced into the rock her dark chocolate hair splayed around her head. _Where was everyone else? Had she really sprinted that far?_

"Ah-ah-ah, little Mudblood. I'm not finished with you yet." He raised his wand.

"NO!" Came a harsh cry from behind her. A man had leapt between her and Lucius Malfoy. No- not a man, it was Draco. The thunder seemed to shake more rain from the sky. In a clap of lightening and her fear Hermione felt as if she were watching the seen from outside her own body. It was like watching one of her Muggle horror movies.

Lucius Malfoys' face was twisted in a leer, his white hand raised. His son looked fiercely straight into his father's eyes, so like his own. He flung his left hand behind him holding Hermione, not that she could have moved on her own. She was petrified to the rock between her pain and Lucius' curse still trained on her. Draco raised his wand hand yelling, "Not her. She and her friends saved my life twice tonight. I'd be dead if it weren't for her."

"MOVE DRACO! Her life isn't worth saving."

"It's a damn lot more worthy than mine or yours."

"Fine! You're as bad as your mother or the Mudblood, Traitor."

And before Hermione could scream, before Draco could block the spell, the retched words than had cost so many lives fell from the lips of the deranged man before them.

Well, I'm excited to be rewriting this story! Quite different I know. I promise to include my previous ideas into this one, just in a different way. What do you think so far?


	2. The Malfoys' Deaths

An Infatuation With Brilliance

Chapter Two: The Malfoys' Deaths

By Sunflowers of Blue

Disclaimer: I wish I had the money to buy an éclair. I am eating peanut butter straight from the container and drinking apple cider for dessert so obviously I do not make money off of the Harry Potter franchise.

Thank you to all who gave me advice about the change of story lines. Once again, sorry it had to happen but the writer's block from reading book seven is here to stay, so on with the story. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with it. You are amazing!

Sorry for the super short almost interlude chapter. I just didn't like how it fit with the rest of the chapter I'd written. Good news is, the other part should be up soon!

RE-CAP: And before Hermione could scream, before Draco could block the spell, the retched words than had cost so many lives fell from the lips of the deranged man before them.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" he cried, looking the part of the murderer he was so many times over. His cry was nearly drowned by the piteous scream that came from Hermione. In a flash of green light, both Malfoy men crumpled.

Lucius fell where he stood, a slightly surprised but never the less deranged look on his now badly scarred and bloody face. Hermione almost threw up looking at him. Draco Malfoy lay still in Hermione's arms, where he'd collapsed in that dreaded flash of green light. He'd saved her life, just as she'd helped to save his earlier.

_No, _she thought. _Not as I saved his. I only helped spare his. That was practically child's play back in the Room of Requirement. It was like a big scary real circus. The fire, the- _she choked and remembered, _Crabbe is dead. That wasn't child's play, but it wasn't like this._

Draco Malfoy had defended her to his death, staring down his own father, for her. For her. For her. Hermione moaned. Her moan became a scream, strangled in her throat bursting to be heard but too choked to amount to much. Her white and wet hands clutched at his pale shoulders and pulled his body close to her. In the rain, under his weight she slipped side-ways off the rock pulling Draco with her. She lay pressed against the dead boy, screaming and crying until she thought her lungs would burst from the effort. She couldn't move, except to toss her head from side to side in agony.

She was sick with anguish. She grasped his cold skin, holding his body close to hers, sobbing uncontrollably, shaking against his still heart. She looked up, catching her breath and stared straight into his open and glassy eyes. She screamed again, choking and retching on the ground inches from his knees. She screamed until her throat wouldn't let her scream anymore. When she could no longer scream she moaned. She crawled up next to him, and lay her head on his chest, her face turned towards his neck which had rivers of rain water pouring down the pale skin.

How long she lay there she didn't know. When she'd regained the use of her voice, she gave a quite moan into his neck. She never heard the thunder roar, or saw the flash of lightning directly above them. In her small and exhausted moan she brushed her lips against his Adam's apple and lay quite still as if all the energy in her body had gone out.

Just as she felt her eyes close and her breath slow almost into nothingness, she felt his Adam's apple against her mouth, move slightly. He swallowed. She gasped and looked into his face. He blinked and looked at her.

"I'm going crazy," she whispered to him.

"N-no," Draco stammered back to her. Draco was alive, was Lucius alive?! Startled by this thought she jumped up, nearly throwing herself at the older man's wrist. There was no pulse, no heartbeat, no breath. He was dead. Almost afraid, as if he was going to curse her even in death, which he probably is, she thought, wherever hell is, she reached forward and closed his eyes.

She crawled back to Draco who sat up brushing the hair out of his face. Water ran down his cheeks and onto his neck and around his Adam's apple, which Hermione now studied a little modestly. She reached out a hand and touched his neck, feeling him swallow against her palm. His cheeks flushed at her touch and she looked away embarrassed. Suddenly, he threw his arms around her, pulling her close.

"We're alive!" was all he said, but she turned her own pink cheeks up to the sky praising the heavens for the miracle. She was laughing and crying as she hugged him back. If anyone had seen them, they would have thought it quite a bizarre scene: a boy and girl hugging, crying and laughing almost maniacally with the dead body of the boy's father only a few yards away. But the only witness to the previous scene had turned away from the portrait he was borrowing and strode back towards the Headmaster's Office musing to himself about the strangeness of the world and sweet tarts.

Well, I hope you didn't mind the severe shortness too, too much! Pretty please, please review!

3 SB


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